Friends help in the growth process, but mentors serve a role that goes beyond friendship. When a person stands in the role of a mentor, then he or she has permission to say when something doesn't seem right. Or when there is a behavior that needs to be corrected, the mentor has the freedom to speak truth – even when the truth is difficult to hear.
Who is a Mentor?
A mentor is someone who makes an investment in another person because of commonalities in life circumstance, such as a woman with grown children who walks alongside a young mother.
According to the sociologist Morris Zelditch, mentors are advisers, models and role models, supporters, people who give emotional and moral encouragement. Mentors are sources of information about and aid in obtaining opportunities, and models.
Mentors are everyday people who are willing to share knowledge, life experiences, and wisdom with another person who is walking a similar path.
How to Find a Mentor
Mentors are common in academic and corporate settings, but mentors are also important on a personal level, but can seem harder to obtain.
When a new professor or employee begins a job, a mentor is often automatically assigned as part of the new-hire protocol. However, friendship mentoring is not necessarily as easy to find. If someone is going through a divorce, a death of child, parent, or friend, or simply seeking guidance on a life change, career change, or just desiring to have someone to talk to about life, a mentor would be helpful and beneficial in the aspects these issues bring.
However, even though it may seem difficult, there are avenues that mentors can be found.
- Many faith communities and churches provide programs that match mentees and mentors.
- Neighborhood communities organization often have men and women who are willing to mentor newcomers.
- Civic organizations provide avenues to seek out mentors.
- Parenting groups provide ways to connect with young parents with older parents.
- Support groups for loss, divorce, abuse, eating disorders, depression, and other problems provide ways to be matched with others who have been through similar issues.
- Hospitals and hospice groups have volunteers who are willing to walk alongside others as they cope with medical problems or grief.
Although it may seem uncomfortable and vulnerable to ask for help from any of these places, the benefit gained from obtaining a mentor usually makes the temporary discomfort worthwhile.
Benefits Gained From a Mentor
If a person is willing to risk asking help from a mentor, and then is able to obtain one, the rewards from this relationship are great.
This friendship will be a place where the mentee can ask for advice, and the mentor can freely share from his or her life experiences.
Janet Thompson, author of Woman to Woman Mentoring (Lifeway 2007) says, "Mentoring occurs in all walks of our life – the good times and the bad. It is simply sharing those been there done that experiences that say I made it through and you can too!"
Sometimes all it takes is someone sharing her own experiences, successes, and failures that motivate, encourage, and help create a place for change.
Paula Wilder - Paula is a freelance writer and speaker. She also teaches developmental reading and English at Guilford Technical Community College. She ...
